Here's What's Going on With Crown Heights' Beleaguered Bedford-Union Armory

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — At a boisterous public meeting at M.S. 61 on Tuesday — part teach-out, part political rally — Assemblywoman Diana Richardson, State Senator Jesse Hamilton, and their political allies drew red lines around the Bedford-Union Armory, a massive city-owned property in the heart of Crown Heights that's the focus of an ongoing redevelopment battle.

The city's Economic Development Corporation chose BFC Partners to redevelop the 138,000 square foot vacant building, located at Bedford Avenue and Union Street.

The company proposed turning it into Bedford Courts, a development featuring mixed-income condos, a new recreation center, office space, and space for community activities.

The housing portion of the proposal includes 330 apartments, of which 164 would be market rate, while 166 would be affordable, according to the following breakdown:

Graphic courtesy of BFC Partners

That proposal, however, wasn't good enough for Richardson, Hamilton, Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, and Assemblyman Walter Mosley, all of whom represent Crown Heights.

In October, they sent a joint letter to the EDC calling on the development to feature only affordable units. The officials also want 80 percent of the apartments held for residents of Community Board 9, for Community Median Income, not Area Median Income, to be used when calculating apartment rents (AMI factors in all five boroughs, plus Westchester), and support the use of union labor on the project, among other demands.

At Tuesday's meeting, Richardson and Hamilton doubled down on that stance.

"I'm not anti-development, I'm just pro my people," Hamilton said. "This is our land and we should be able to dictate how it should be built."

"This armory is too big to lose, and what is being proposed will not be acceptable to the Crown Heights community," Richardson said.

The assemblywoman said that she and other elected officials recently met with the city about the project. The city's staffers, Richardson said, "promised to come back to us with several other options" for the property — specifically, "different configurations for the housing portion" of the development.

Richardson said the alternative proposals would be available before the next public hearing she hosts on the Armory, scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 17 at noon at M.S. 61.

But on Wednesday, the EDC disputed the assemblywoman's assertions.

"That characterization of the meeting is not entirely accurate," an EDC spokesperson told Patch. "We committed to continuing to work with the community and elected officials in the coming months to ensure that the final project fully reflects the community’s needs, including looking closely at affordability levels. We look forward to this ongoing discussion and to transforming the armory into a world-class mixed-use development that will provide much-needed affordable housing and space for educational programming, recreation, and local non-profits.”

Tuesday's meeting also featured other calls for action, as well as attacks on the credibility of BFC itself.

Anthony Williamson, a union leader with the Laborers Local 79, took the microphone to call for the project to be built with union labor.

"We need affordable housing, but how can we have affordable housing without good jobs?" he asked. "Real jobs means career-oriented union jobs."

Richardson introduced a tenant from a Brownsville building at 185 E. 92nd St. that BFC owns. The tenant accused the company of leaving her and her fellow residents without heat, hot water and gas for a month, until activists got involved.

But a BFC spokesperson disputed that account.

“There has been no disruption to heat or hot water since we acquired [the property] in July 2016," the spokesperson said, adding that the company provided a mobile boiler while replacing the building's aging one, and has given tenants hot plates while fixing "unauthorized and unlawful modifications to the gas service" made by the previous owner.

"We are also continuing to renovate [the property] at no cost to tenants, just as we have done for thousands of other low income NYC households, which will drastically improve quality of life for these families,” the spokesperson said.

Some of the evening's most strident words came from famed community organizer Bertha Lewis.

"Imma make it plain," Lewis said. "I'm here to kill this thing. It's unaffordable, it's bad, it's non-union, plus it's not what we asked for."

Lewis also claimed that BFC principal Joseph Ferrera was "the biggest donor to Donald Trump. This is what we're dealing with."

"Trump may have the White House, but you won't get the Bedford-Union Armory," she said to applause.

A recent list of the ten largest Republican donors during this year's election season compiled by the International Business Times did not include Ferrera. The businessman's name also did not turn up in a search of the Federal Election Commission's individual donor database.

Among those supporting the BFC project are organizations which are slated to receive space in the new office complex.

On Tuesday, BFC announced that the West Indian American Day Carnival Association would establish its new headquarters in a 3,500 square foot space there, a deal Association president William Howard called "a huge victory for our Crown Heights community."

After Tuesday's meeting was over, Stephanie Johnson, a board member of the Brooklyn Community Pride Center (BCPC), said the organization is also negotiating a lease with BFC, adding that the space would let BCPC "focus our efforts and resources" on its "life-enabling projects."

Lisa Davis, a board member with Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Elders (SAGE), said her group had forged "a tremendous partnership" with BFC at other sites the company owns.

"What they bring to the community is opportunity for growth," Davis said.

Both activists clarified that while they backed BFC's redevelopment effort, they weren't weighing in on the specific issues discussed at the public meeting itself.

A final perspective was provided by Crown Heights Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo, who made recent headlines for challenging those advocating for the city to scrap BFC's pitch.

"While others have called to 'kill the project' in the beginning of the negotiation stage, I believe that we should exhaust the entire negotiation process and continue to apply pressure in order to reach the best possible deal on behalf of the residents of the 35th District," she wrote in a recent statement.

At the meeting, Cumbo downplayed the idea that she was working against Richardson, Hamilton, Clarke and Mosley, and confirmed that she supported their principles and priorities.

"I want to continue to work to achieve these goals to the largest extent that the project can bare," Cumbo said. "I don't want to kill the project at this stage. I want to continue to negotiate."

Pictured at top: the Bedford-Union Armory. Photo by John V. Santore